


Fourteen

by AStrangeDaze (TerraRising)



Category: NU'EST, Produce 101 (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Gen, I can't cope with the final rankings right now, This just made it worse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 23:19:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11218320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerraRising/pseuds/AStrangeDaze
Summary: Fourteen. Minhyun never knew it was possible to hate a number this much.





	Fourteen

 

**Fourteen. Pledis.**

 

 

Four syllables and his heart is logged in his throat again, choking him, half his hope draining from his soul.

 

 

 **Fourteen**.

 

 

The cameras are zooming in on all four of the candidates for the final spot in the group. Minhyun vaguely registers the camera in front of him, he wonders what kind of face he is making because he doesn’t know right now. Years of training and awareness have been thrown out the window, this waiting fills him with more dread than he thought was possible for a single person to feel all at once.

 

BoA _sunbae-nim_ ’s pause drags on for an eternity until Minhyun can feel the hands of time itself clawing at the base of his skull.

 

 

 **Fourteen**.

 

 

Then BoA _sunbae-nim_ ’s lips are moving, he can see her lips forming words, he knows he’s heard them because it feels like someone has thrown him into the Han River in the middle of winter. But it still takes a moment for them to register, it can’t be true, can’t be right. The universe is playing a cruel trick on him.

 

 

**Fourteen, Pledis, Kim Jonghyun.**

 

 

The other trainees are swarming Jonghyun, and he’s smiling that smile again. The one that says he’s resigned to not being good enough again; the smile that Minhyun has seen grace Jonghyun’s lips too often in the past few years; the smile that had slowly been washed away in the last three months with the support his fans had given him is back again.

 

Minhyun wants to punch a wall. He wants to scream his frustration for everyone to hear, wants to give Jonghyun the world, but he can’t. He’s frozen, in shock, in disbelief. He barely even registers Dongho placing thirteen, his heart is already shattered open on the ground in front of him; he has nothing left to give.

 

He can’t breathe.

 

The past seven years living and breathing in each other’s space, waking up every day to that kind face, and then suddenly he is all alone. He can’t breathe, Jonghyun is drifting out of his grasp, there’s no air. How is he supposed to breathe?

 

They had talked about this before, half-serious and half in jest. What if only some of them make it? What is none of them make it?

 

No one prepared Minhyun for the possibility that only he would make it.

 

When Sungwoon joins them, face glowing in relief and happiness, Minhyun walks over on autopilot. He can feel himself wrapping his arms around the other boy, can feel his lips form shapes, his lungs expel air until words that should be congratulations sound.

 

He doesn’t know, can’t be certain; it feels like someone has just reached inside of him and pulled out everything that he was and now all he’s left with is this shell of a puppet and a heavy bitterness in his stomach. Like the fairy tale wolf that tried to devour all the little lambs, only to have his stomach cut open and sown shut around rocks.

 

A warning. Didn’t his mother always hide lessons in the stories she told him as a child?

 

He had been too greedy, should never have wanted more, but riding off the high of success, of acknowledgement and support, he had dared to dream, to hope. Like Icarus flying too close to the sun, his wax is melting and he’s losing his wings, the people that lifted him up so high drop like flies all around him.

 

Minhyun feels light-headed, his body is not his own. The room is spinning as screams swell around him, his legs have not felt this unsteady before, no matter how many hours he’d spent on his feet running through dance moves. He breaks away from the crowd, he needs to sit down; if he stands for a second longer he’s going to fall off the stage.

 

He swallows hard, collapsing into his chair; the sparkling blue cushion embossed with a shiny number nine is mocking him, he might as well be sitting on a bed of nails. Victory, Minhuyun realizes, is not something mortals should taste alone.

 

 

Victory today only tastes bitter, without a hint of sweet.

 

 

Victory alone tastes exactly like misery.

 

 

Sometime while he’s still in a daze, the program draws to an end. The other trainees flood the stage, crying tears of happiness and frustration as they rush to congratulate the winners and console those robbed of their dreams once again.

 

Somehow, Minhyun makes it down the stairs without his legs giving away, he thinks someone might have taken him by the elbow and guided him down with a worried gaze but he can’t recall whom it was. He feels sick, he needs to get off the stage, but people keep waylaying him with hugs and congratulations. Minhyun fights his way through molasses towards the edge of the stage before realizing that the extra weight is Seonho who has attached himself to Minhyun’s back.

 

Any other time and Minhyun would have indulged his dongseng, any other day and he would have gladly returned the hug. But not today, not now, not when his world has fallen out from under his feet. He shrugs the younger boy off of him, spinning around to hide his face from the cameras and crying fans.

 

Seonho is stubborn though, he clings to Minhyun tightly. It takes a moment before Minhyun realizes that he’s shaking and that the younger boy isn’t offering congratulations but trying desperately to help hold him together, telling him over and over again that it was going to be okay.

 

His other friends are surrounding him now, pulling him into their arms in turn with a knowing look. They’re warm and solid around him, he can see in their eyes that they’re just as shocked as he is and their support is the one last certain thing in this world that he clings to. Dongho pulls him into his arms, the familiar feeling of his group mate’s embrace drags a sob from his throat, but it’s when Dongho spins him around and he meets Jonghyun’s eyes that the tears begin to fall for real.

 

Jonghyun’s touch unravels the very last thread that was holding Minhyun together and the torrent of tears he had been holding back up until this point floods out all at once.

 

He’s clinging to Jonghyun, fingers locked into a vice grip in the back of Jonghyun’s blazer and soaking his collar with every emotion that burns the back of his eyelids as they leave his body. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he can’t stop repeating those words, can’t find any other ones to say but words could never be enough.

 

Jonghyun just holds him, steady in the storm as always, warm hands running up and down the length of his back.

 

Minhyun just sobs harder because for the first time in seven years, Jonghyun doesn’t tell him that it’s all going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> My stan and OTP got in and I can't even be happy because this happened. I tried to write out my feelings but I think it only made it worse, and it took forever trying to type through my tears.
> 
> I can't believe this is how it ended. I'm exhausted now, I hope everyone else is doing well.


End file.
